Mohit Garg is an alumnus of BITS Pilani (Pilani ‘15), where he pursued his B. Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Subsequently, he completed his Master of Science (MS) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UCLA, Los Angeles. Previously, he has worked as a Mitacs Globalink Research Intern at Université du Québec and as a Research Assistant at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Currently, he works as a Senior Applied Architect at NVIDIA.

Could you share some of the most memorable experiences you had as a BITS student and what time at BITS do you think shaped you into the person you are today?

I joined BITS in 2015. 2015 was a pre-COVID time, so that might be different from many students who are at the campuses or who have just graduated from campuses. The best part of college, I believe, was learning to navigate and adapt to life there - building meaningful friendships along the way, and trying to discover my definition of success. Another significant part of college was figuring out what I wanted to do. I had always been fascinated by computers-they intrigued me, and I was eager to understand how they worked.

How did you decide to go for something like electronics? Because many people we see on campus today, usually tend to go for something that's IT or software-related.

We generally don’t see many people naturally inclined towards electronics. Initially, my interests aligned more with computers. Like many others, I had filled in the form to choose CS above electronics, but I wasn’t too upset when I received electronics as I believed that the course still aligned with what I wanted to do in the future. The first year was mostly the same for everyone on campus, so the real journey began in our 2nd year when the foundational courses related to our branches started.

By then, I had already interacted with my seniors and looked through the placement records that clearly showed higher IT sector placements. As a result, I was a bit hesitant when the electronics courses started, but I decided to explore this field. As the courses progressed, I developed an interest in and enjoyed the subject as it is deeply rooted in physics. It helps us understand how the world works and also forms the base of computers, which I was interested in right from the beginning.

Like you have a diverse background from research on photonics to deep learning and system architecture. What advice you would like to give to students who are aspiring to work at the intersection of hardware and AI?

During my second or third year, there was a new buzzword that seemed to interest everyone and that was machine learning. The concept sounded very interesting - teaching machines to learn, almost like something out of science fiction, and hence, everyone was trying to learn more about it. I wanted to explore how it could be applied and whether it was relevant to my field. I realized I loved both electronics and computer science. I was interested in the intersection of both fields, which led me to computer architecture, in which I was deeply invested during my time at BITS. I was always curious and eager to learn new things, particularly in computing. For a brief period, I was also captivated by quantum computing and took a course on it as an elective in college.

My advice to students would be to stay curious. Undergrad is one of the best times to explore and learn. In a university like BITS where courses are offered in almost every domain you can think of, students get the opportunity to take courses in several domains and see what interests them. Just try to learn more and more and figure out what you really want to do. 

You also worked as a teaching assistant in digital design and computer architecture at UCLA. So we also have TAs here. So what advice would you give to students? How has teaching influenced your approach to complex technical problems?

I had the opportunity to be the TA in two courses - Digital Design Laboratory and the Computer Architecture course for undergraduate students at UCLA. Through these experiences, I truly gained a profound appreciation for teachers. Being a good teacher isn’t just about knowing the material- it’s about understanding it deeply, instilling it in your mind, and then explaining it to someone who doesn’t know the context in simple terms. At UCLA, I experienced this as a TA for the digital design course where students mostly from computer science had to write digital code. Hence, it took a lot of tutorials, sessions with my advising professors, and a lot of YouTube, especially Richard Feynman, to learn how to teach more effectively. But, teaching also helps you understand and clear out your concepts because teaching something to someone, enhances our understanding.

As you mentioned there were buzzwords like ML and quantum computing during your time at BITS. So what do you think are the things that will be trending in a few years from now? What are the things that students should currently focus on if they want to do something good in tech or electronics?

That’s a hard question to answer because predicting trends in the industry even five years from now is challenging as the tech industry evolves rapidly. Instead, my focus will be on my projects for the next six months to a year. Maybe this clicks with someone currently at BITS, doing their undergraduate. So, I work on one aspect of ML for hardware at NVIDIA. I like to explore whatever is happening in the domain and try to learn as much as possible to understand what is happening. Then, I can choose a particular topic to dive deep into.

I’m fascinated by powerful LLMs, like those developed by OpenAI and Anthropic. I think a lot of focus will be on how to design new apps for the AI era when we have LLMs that can think or emulate thinking to some respect. The other would be the requirement of a new UX as you design new apps with new capabilities and their ability to ‘think’. So, the UX would be user experience and a new way for users to interact with these apps.

We generally note that resources for IT placements are easily available. On the other hand, if students want to pursue a career in the electronics domain, should they prepare everything from classes or is there something additional they should do from the beginning?

When I returned from my internship in Canada, there was a gap of nearly one or two weeks before the placements started. Initially, I had decided not to sit for placements because I wanted to go straight into pursuing my master’s. However, my parents encouraged me to try it to see how things went, so I sat down for some placement rounds. I found that the courses we study provide a good foundation helpful, especially for the written round. Still, interviews' practical, design-focused nature requires delving into the extra examples and circuit design problems in the textbooks and trying to design circuits from scratch to meet specific requirements. Nowadays, I’ve also seen people sharing question banks and collations of commonly asked questions for such interviews on platforms like LinkedIn, which can also be helpful resources. So I think it's important to be very clear with the basics, but at the same time, it's important to also not flounder on your basics in interviews.

As you mentioned your interest in playing guitar and traveling. So how do these activities influence or enhance your creative thinking approach to work?

I believe traveling is a core part of how I approach life. When I’m not working, I like to travel if possible. I try to maximize those opportunities whenever I can. Since moving back to India, it’s been a bit harder to get out of Bangalore, but my time in the U.S. allowed me to embrace my love for traveling. In the past two years, I finally decided to learn the guitar and joined classes. Learning something new is difficult, but it is also really rewarding. The beauty of learning something you’re passionate about, like a hobby, is that your genuine interest in it helps you overcome the early hurdles. Once you push past the obstacles by being patient and being more forgiving with yourself, you realize that learning anything new is always challenging and takes time, but it’s worth the effort. You should always be open to new experiences.